Cardinal Crimson

by Will McDermott

  ‘I always knew I would see you again,’ replied Francks.

  Bitten nodded. ‘I know. The plan, the grand scheme of the Universe.’

  ‘You still have one last part to play,’ said Francks. ‘A vital role.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Bitten. ‘But not now. You shouldn’t be here now. It’s too dangerous.’

  Francks turned to look at his former enemy, staring at a spot just behind the man’s temple with his cloudy eye. After a moment, Bitten stood and walked toward the door, back into the darkness, as if that would stop the sight.

  Francks wondered how much Bitten knew about the attack. He’d grown to trust this man in the weeks after Bowdie’s death, but he had been an enemy; freely admitted that he’d sent Francks out into the Wastes to die. How much can I trust him now?

  ‘It’s Ignus, isn’t it?’ asked Francks, deciding to push some buttons to see how Bitten reacted. ‘He sent an assassin after me tonight.’

  Bitten stopped pacing in the dark. ‘You were attacked?’ he asked. The surprise seemed genuine. ‘So soon after arriving?’

  ‘Do you know anything about it?’ asked Francks. The adrenaline began to flow again, calming his nerves and numbing the pain in his arms and legs. ‘Was Ignus behind it?’

  ‘No,’ replied Bitten after a pause. ‘Jules Ignus is gone.’ Another long pause followed, but Francks waited. He knew there was more to come. ‘I don’t know who sent the assassin. Not many people even knew you were back.’

  ‘How did you know?’ asked Francks. He leaned back, slipping his hand under the blanket to grab the dagger, just in case.

  If Bitten was unnerved by the question, the darkness hid it. ‘The Soul Savers sent word. I have a… uh… an arrangement with them. But someone very powerful, and very well-connected must want you dead.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Francks. He tightened his grip on the knife. ‘What does anyone have to fear from an old man, withered by time and the Wastes?’

  Bitten came back into the light, but kept his head bowed, as if he couldn’t look Francks in the eye. ‘As you said, the redemption business is good. The last thing anyone wants is a prophet coming in from the Wastes with a message of hope. An actual saviour appearing right now would be bad for business. There are many people who wouldn’t want that to happen.’

  Silence filled the room. Francks stared at Bitten in his new suit, his face clean and freshly shaved. Sure he’d been an enemy, but he’d also been a holy warrior; a leader of the armies of truth. Now who was he? A businessman feeding off the faith of others?

  ‘What happened to you, Jerod?’ asked Francks.

  Bitten finally looked him in the eye and Francks could see the full weight the years had left on his oldest, and probably only, friend. He released his hold on the dagger. He had nothing to fear from this man.

  ‘I grew up,’ he replied. ‘I survived the wars and I matured.’

  ‘You mean you lost your faith,’ said Francks.

  Bitten nodded, slowly. ‘And you’ll lose more than that if you continue preaching.’

  Francks just smiled. ‘If that is the will of the Universe, then who am I to argue?’

  Bitten shook his head and sighed. ‘You won’t leave, will you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And you’re going to continue to preach the return of Bowdie?’

  Francks nodded. ‘I cannot turn away from the plan.’

  ‘No, I don’t suppose you can,’ Bitten reached inside his jacket and pulled out a small package wrapped in linen. ‘Then take this. It’s not much – all the credits I had on hand, plus a list of names and locations. These are gangs who will take you in, no questions asked. Each one knows how to contact me, if needed.’

  ‘More business relationships?’

  Bitten nodded. ‘That’s all I can do, though. If you don’t leave, I won’t be able to save you this time.’

  ‘It is not I who needs saving.’

  Guilder Tavis sat at his desk and tried to concentrate on the paperwork in front of him. His assistant, Meru, had stacked everything into neat piles. There were contracts for him to read, payments on promissory notes he needed to validate, collection requests that had to be signed, and warrants that needed to be approved and stamped.

  He pushed his chair back and grumbled. ‘How did Meru let this work pile up so much?’ He shoved the nearest pile away, scattering the contracts across the desk and ruining the ordered system his assistant had spent so much time upon. He then stood and paced across the room to another table.

  Tavis was a heavy-set man with thick black hair that always seemed unkempt even after he combed it. His roundish face slid into a thick neck, with only a thin, greying goatee separating his chin from his jowls. His thick, flowing robes kept him warm in the dank office, but did little to hide the paunch above his belt. He had the look of a former warrior who had gone soft behind a desk.

  In fact, Tavis had once been a ganger in the Underhive, and had only disdain for the guilders in his youth. ‘They’re soft,’ he used to say. ‘Without their bodyguards, they’re not so tough. Just a bunch of money-grabbing, noble wannabes. Bankers? Businessmen? Traders? Hah! They’re nothing more than parasites, preying on the poor, I say.’

  His tune changed when a lucky strike put a sizeable amount of credits in Tavis’s pocket. After removing the competition and his former gangmates from the equation, he’d gone straight to a guilder. They formed a partnership and Tavis prospered, especially since his partner’s untimely failing health had removed him from the picture as well.

  In the end, Tavis had become the epitome of the soft guilder he had once loathed. He ran the whole operation, with extensive help from Meru who better understood the contractual side of the business. Tavis still had a nose for opportunity, and that nose had brought in a lot of revenue over the years.

  ‘And now it’s time to reap the benefits,’ he said as he looked at the model spread out on the back table.

  A scale model of a dome dominated the work table at the back of his office. The table itself was priceless, made of real wood, but Tavis had no eye for the fineries of his office today. He took for granted the thick pile carpeting beneath his feet and the tapestries that hid the dull-grey metallic walls of his downhive abode. This was his baby on the table.

  He slid the top of the dome off the model, exposing the interior. Inside sat a model of his new manse. He’d outgrown this small hab in Hive City and as he was no noble, he’d had to go outside the confines of the City to find enough space for a manse that would satisfy his lavish tastes. The entire dome was to be his playground. Huge pools surrounded by imported sculpture. His own theatre where he would import special plays for his entertainment. An immense new manse that would be the envy of guilders and nobles alike. A shining gold dome topped a glittering three-storey abode with a pillared entrance. The central courtyard, dotted with statues, led to the gardens in the rear, complete with fountains.

  Tavis knew that this last was purely extravagance. The cost of procuring and caring for live plants alone was more than a mere guilder could afford, but he loved to dream, and the comfort of a huge manse in his very own dome had long been Tavis’s dream.

  ‘Who would have thought that a man of such humble beginnings would own a dome one day?’ he said as he gazed at the model.

  A cough from the door brought Tavis out of his reverie. He looked up to see Meru, dressed in her customary, sensible, beige trouser suit. As usual, she held a data-slate in one hand and a stylus in the other. Tavis wasn’t sure he’d ever seen her without stylus and pad. She was efficient and went to great pains to look the part.

  She coughed again. ‘Excuse me, sir,’ she said. ‘A Mr Grondle to see you.’

  ‘Mr Grondle?’ he asked. ‘Oh, the foreman. You can just call him Grondle. That’s his name.’

  ‘Of course, sir,’ she replied. ‘Shall I show Mr Grondle into your office?’

  ‘At this hour?’ Tavis sighed and trudged back to his desk. ‘This can’t be good new
s.’ He fell into his chair behind the piles of paperwork. ‘Yes, yes. Show him in.’

  Meru stepped back and a moment later the large foreman stepped through the door.

  Tavis immediately yelled, ‘Stop!’

  Grondle teetered forward on the balls of his feet and waved his pudgy arms around, but was finally able to stop his momentum without toppling over.

  ‘How dare you step foot into my office looking like that,’ continued Tavis. ‘You will not soil my carpet with that filth.’

  Grondle was indeed a sight to behold. His shirt, which might once have been white was now stained brown and grey with a mixture of sweat, dirt and mortar. His trousers were smeared with more of the same. Grondle’s thick beard and hair were matted against his sweaty, red face. Every once in a while a bit of slime dripped off his beard onto his shoulder, while brown streaks ran like muddy rivers down his glistening arms to hands that were practically encased in sludge.

  ‘You will report from there.’

  Grondle wrung his hands, which sent a cascade of dirt hurtling toward the rug. Tavis opened his mouth to scream at the man again, but decided it would only prolong the filthy foreman’s stay in his formerly clean office. At last, Grondle screwed up enough courage to start his report.

  ‘I’m sorry to tell ye, sir,’ he began, ‘There’s been another accident at the construction site.’

  After all the build-up, this revelation came as no surprise to Tavis. ‘How much time will this one set us back?’

  ‘It’s worse than time, sir,’ replied Grondle. ‘We lost a dozen men at least.’

  ‘Lost?’

  ‘Buried, sir. That massive rockslide at the edge of the dome gave way and killed an entire crew.’

  ‘I repeat,’ said Tavis, drumming his fingers on his desk. ‘How much time will this cost me?’

  ‘I dunno, sir,’ said Grondle. ‘It all depends… ’

  ‘On what?’ Tavis stood and came around the desk, staring Grondle down until the large foreman balked and looked away.

  ‘On whether I can get the men I need to do the work.’ Tavis opened his mouth to protest, but Grondle pressed on, perhaps trying to get it all out quickly so it would hurt less. ‘There’s been half-a-dozen accidents in the past six months alone. It’s been hard enough to get workers and today I lost twelve men and another twelve walked off the job after we dug out the bodies.’

  ‘Hire more men,’ said Tavis. He strode over toward Grondle. You’re the foreman. Personnel issues are your problem.’

  ‘That’s what I’m telling ye, sir,’ said Grondle. He began to wring his hands again and then noticed the pile of ash and dirt on the carpet below him and stopped. ‘I can’t get anyone else to work for me. The men think this project is cursed. Nobody will work on it anymore… at least not at the wages we’re paying.’

  Tavis yelled right in Grondle’s face. ‘We’re already paying twice the scale rate!’ He stormed back to the model. ‘And we’re not anywhere closer to this than when we started two years ago.’

  ‘What can I do, sir?’ asked Grondle. ‘Without men, we can’t do the work.’

  ‘Then find men!’ screamed Tavis. ‘I don’t care where. I don’t care how. But you get workers into that dome or you’ll be scraping waste from the bottom of Dust Falls until your hair falls out and your eyes bulge.’

  ‘How do I…?’

  ‘Whatever it takes, Grondle,’ said Tavis. ‘You do whatever it takes to get the job done, do you hear me?’

  ‘Yes sir.’

  Now get your filthy carcass out of my office. And send Meru in here with a mop and a broom.’

  It took a few minutes for Kal’s eyes to adjust to the dim light. The only illumination came from a bank of vid screens arrayed in a semi-circle facing the back wall. Nemo, master spy of the Underhive, collector of confidential information, keeper of arcane secrets, purveyor of archaic tech and personal pain in the rump for Kal Jerico, sat in a high-backed chair in the middle of the monitors.

  But even though he was bathed in the warm glow of the screens, the spymaster looked like a silhouette. He was dressed from head to toe in a form-fitting, flat black fabric that seemed to drink in the light. He would have been impossible to see against the black chair if not for the reflective helmet that covered his head. Kal could almost make out the images on the screens reflected in Nemo’s smoked-glass mask.

  The bounty hunter could sense other presences in the room as well. There was the pit boss and his two goons behind him, but a low growl and a snap of Wotan’s jaws beside him confirmed there were other guards lurking in the shadows to the side.

  ‘You have me at a distinct disadvantage, Nemo,’ said Kal, adding ‘again,’ under his breath.

  ‘And you owe me a lot of credits, Jerico,’ replied the spymaster. Kal couldn’t even tell if Nemo was looking at him or not. Even as Nemo spoke, the chair swivelled back and forth to face one and then another of the vid screens. It was a little disconcerting. ‘How would you like to settle up? Cash or an IOU?’

  Kal weighed his options for only a second. He had no cash and would never sign a debt note to Nemo; at least not again. He decided to try a third option. ‘I don’t accept the premise of your statement, Nemo,’ he began. ‘That game was rigged. I owe you nothing. And if you want to dispute it, I suggest we take the matter up with the local guild magistrate.’

  ‘Oh, there’s no dispute,’ said Nemo. ‘You bet and lost… doubled. I have an entire room full of people who will attest to that.’

  Kal barrelled onward. ‘But your hostess pushed me all in so your dealer could beat me with his rigged hand. All I need is one person at that table to fold under the scrutiny of the guild magistrate. Do you have that much confidence in your people?’

  An odd noise emanated from behind Nemo’s mask. It sounded like tar bubbles popping in quick succession or the sound of far-off gunfire. After a moment, Kal realised that the spymaster was laughing. He looked around the dim room, but none of the black shapes had moved or even said anything since Kal had entered. Perhaps there was something on one of Nemo’s monitors that had made him laugh.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ he asked, finally.

  ‘You don’t know how right you are, Jerico,’ said Nemo.

  ‘So, I’m free to go?’

  ‘No, no. When you called them my people.’ The sentence was punctuated with that disconcerting, rapid-fire laugh again. ‘There’s no one out there who will speak against me. I think you know that. And as for the magistrate, I believe he was the man to your left at the table.’

  At that, the entire room erupted in laughter.

  ‘You lost, Jerico,’ said Nemo. ‘Yes, Stella bet all of your chips. But you went along with the bet, even after the double, and you lost. Now you owe me a great deal of money, and I ask once again, how do you plan to pay?’

  ‘But, but…’ sputtered Kal.

  ‘Bring on the magistrate, Jerico,’ continued Nemo. ‘In fact, Jock, go fetch the magistrate right now. He’s probably still trying to win back the money he owes me. We can take care of this tonight, and then tomorrow you, Kal Jerico, will be in the slave pits for failure to pay your debt.’

  The pit boss turned to leave. Kal was getting flustered. Why did his meetings with Nemo always end so poorly? ‘Wait,’ he called out. ‘I’ll sign the IOU.’ At least that would give him some time to find a way out of this mess.

  ‘I have a better idea,’ said Nemo. He turned toward the side wall and flipped a few switches on a board. ‘I have a bounty that needs hunting. You bring in this man for me and I will wipe your slate clean.’

  ‘One bounty and no more debt?’ asked Kal. ‘That’s a high price for a single head. Sounds too good to be true.’

  ‘Oh, not just this debt, Jerico, but all of your previous debts to me. You still owe me over that little matter with the Underhive vampire last year, not to mention the deaths of several of my best men over the past few years.’

  Kal blanched even further. If Nemo was willing to
forgive and forget on all of their past business dealings, then this bounty would be tough to collect. ‘What’s the catch?’ he asked.

  ‘You must bring him in alive,’ said Nemo. ‘He is of no use to me dead, so keep your buxom partner on a tight leash. There is no half-bounty for a head in a sack.’

  ‘That’s it?’ asked Kal. ‘Doesn’t sound too hard. Just give me the particulars and Wotan and I will go take our leave to begin tracking down this dangerous fugitive.’

  ‘Not so fast, Jerico,’ said Nemo. He flipped another switch.

  The room went white. Kal raised his arm to shield his eyes, but was blinded for a moment by the sudden assault of bright light. Wotan growled and barked, but the rasping sound that Kal had always likened to the revving of a chain blade stopped abruptly. He then heard laughing again, but this time it was almost a childish giggling, and he was almost certain there were two distinct pitches in the laughter.

  Kal tried to move toward Wotan, but his eyes were blurry and stars filled his vision. As he wiped the stars from his bleary eyes, hands grabbed him from either side and slammed him into the wall.

  When Kal could see again, he found Jock, the pit boss, and his two goons holding him in place against the wall. Nemo was still at his chair, but the other two guards were slapping each other’s hands, jumping into the air, and slamming into each other, giggling and laughing like girls.

  He recognised the guards, now that he could see them in the light. It was the twins who liked to be called ‘Seek’ and ‘Destroy’. Wotan had sat on one or the other during the whole Underhive Vampire fiasco, giving Kal enough time to handle the situation in his own inimitable style.

  Wotan now lay at the feet of the cavorting twins, shackles around his legs and a steel muzzle holding his strong, metallic jaws shut tight.

  ‘What is the meaning of this?’ asked Kal.

  ‘Collateral.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s simple,’ said Nemo. ‘You bring me Jobe Francks, alive, and you get your cyber-mastiff back, alive. If not…’